The present invention relates to a novel dental flosser adapted for manual use in cleaning the opposed faces of adjacent teeth and dental restorations of food particles and dental plaque, and detecting incipient decay of the teeth, the same comprising an elongated handle having at one end, a bifurcated flosser head including a pair of downwardly extending, spaced and curved arms having concaved and notched extremities to receive a length of dental floss and at the opposite end, the usual tufts of teeth brushing bristles. The handle portion may include a centrally located cavity that is adapted to receive a removable floss spool assembly. At the base of the bifurcated head, the dental flosser includes a unique floss anchoring button on the top surface and a bulbed fulcrum portion on the bottom surface. The interior tip surface portions of the spaced arms are flared outwardly for safety purposes and protect the gums from injury while the length of the floss bridging the bifurcations is engaged between adjacent teeth during the cleaning operation. The bulbed fulcrum portions allow the bifurcated end to be fulcrumed on the face of an adjacent tooth of a back molar to thereby permit the dental flosser to reach and effectively clean the back molars. In lieu of or in addition to the removable floss spool assembly, the dental flosser may embody an interior fluid line having an opening directly above the flossing element to allow simultaneous and combined action of the flosser and hydraulic pressure when the fluid line is connected to a fluid source.
Heretofore, dental floss holders of the same general type have been found undesirable and unacceptable due to sundry reasons, including, inter alia, their bulky size, insufficient cleaning and removal of debris and tendency to injure or cut the gums when the flossing element is engaged between or manipulated around adjacent teeth.
At least two considerations are of utmost importance in effectively cleaning the mouth. The first consideration deals with food particles and other debris that become lodged around the teeth. The second consideration involves dental plaque which becomes attached to and forms a coating upon the teeth. In both cases, the foreign matter (i.e., food particles, debris and dental plaque) must be removed for effective cleaning of the teeth.
Dental debris is usually caused by chewing action whereby food particles and juices broken up during mastication are lodged in cavities and spaces about the teeth. Generally this debris is loosely packed and can be removed by such well known devices as the toothbrush, dental floss or by hydraulic means. Directing a stream of water with sufficient pressure to those areas in which the dental debris is located will sometimes be sufficient to dislodge the debris.
Dental plaque which is a complex bacterial type coating attached to a tooth is much more difficult to remove than dental debris. Removal entails something more than a jet or spray of water and will usually require some type of mechanical action. Such mechanical action is best afforded today by a toothbrush scrubbing the external and lingual surfaces of the teeth. Dental plaque which is attached to the interproximal tooth surfaces is currently best removed by dental floss, or other means which have the ability to get between the teeth and mechanically engage the plaque and forcibly rub it off the tooth surfaces.
The recommended procedure for scrubbing the teeth with dental floss on all sides, and particularly below the gum line and between the teeth is to slip the floss between two teeth, hold the floss in a taut loop around about half of the side of a tooth, and reciprocate the floss in a seesaw manner across the tooth while at the same time moving the floss from the bottom of the tooth to the top. This procedure is repeated for the front and back of each tooth so that scrubbing is accomplished from bottom to top all the way around the tooth.
At the present time such flossing is accomplished by holding the floss with the fingers. This requires considerable dexterity and time. Moreover, it is necessary to insert one and sometimes at least two fingers in the mouth in order to accomplish the proper movement on all the teeth. This is quite difficult to accomplish and moreover the fingers obstruct vision so that flossing is not always accomplished in the desired manner.
Various dental floss holders have been provided in the past for using floss to remove food particles from between the teeth. However, because the above described technique for flossing the teeth is a recent development, holders heretofore provided are not suitable for accomplishing all the desired movements of the floss. Moreover, such holders are bulky in size, difficult to use without injuring or cutting the gums when the flossing element is manipulated around adjacent teeth, and fail to effectively clean back molars.
Insofar as hydraulic devices, the prior art has numerous examples of water spray devices for the purpose of directing a flow of liquid into the mouth. Certain drawbacks, however, become immediately apparent such as the fact that the water spray alone can only do part of an effective cleaning job because it is able only to remove the debris which is loosely situated on and between the teeth. The water spray devices will not be effective in cleaning dental plaque nor in cleaning debris which may have lodged more securely between the teeth since they fail to mechanically engage the dental plaque. Devices having only a weak single spray will be insufficient to even clean the loose debris from between the teeth; conversely, those devices which have a harder spray or jet produce physical displeasures which unfortunately make their use undesirable and even act as a deterrent to the use of hydraulic cleaning devices. The major disadvantages inherent in the single jet dental nozzle is the inability of the user to confine the water jet to the dental structures. This results in impingement of the single jet stream upon the soft tissues of the floor of the mouth, tongue, cheeks, or throat which in turn results in such undesirable side effects as pain, gagging, nausea and even vomiting. Another drawback of the prior art devices is that they are not adapted to be used with other cleaning devices nor are they particularly adapted for use within a time element normally considered sufficient for cleaning the mouth.
Accordingly, there is a need in the industry for a dental flosser, preferably of simple construction, easy to use, inexpensive, capable of removing debris and dental plaque from between the teeth in a safe and reliable fashion, and adaptable to auxiliary dental care attachments, such as a Water Pik, electric toothbrush assembly, polishing element or mirror.